


Arachnophobia

by purplelly



Category: Achievement Hunter, Rooster Teeth
Genre: Arachnophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:22:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelly/pseuds/purplelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray wants a tarantula. Michael, the pet shop employee, isn’t so fond of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arachnophobia

Ray doesn’t entirely know what possessed him to go buy a tarantula. He only knows that the idea had randomly popped into his head and he couldn’t get it to leave. 

And so he ended up going to the pet store Saturday afternoon. 

The first room of the shop had mainly chew toys and cages and leashes. A cage of birds stood in the middle, and at the back wall were fish tanks. Two doors on the right wall were labeled ‘Cats’, the other ‘Dogs’. The windows on each confirmed it. The tarantula cages were on the opposite wall of the doors.

Ray walked up and peered through the glass. There were three cages, each with one spider. One was partially hidden by wood shavings covering the floor of their cage. One was chilling on a rock, preoccupied by a cricket, and the last one faced Ray and seemed to stare right back at him. 

It was slightly disturbing, but just fueled Ray’s curiosity more. 

Ray turned to the front counter, feeling for his wallet in his pocket. A man stood behind the counter, tapping on his phone and occasionally glancing at Ray. His name tag read ‘Michael’. 

“Hey, man,” Ray greeted. “I was wondering if I could one of those tarantulas over there?” 

Michael grimaced. “Um...Okay.” He stood up, led Ray away from the tarantula cages and towards a shelf of different bags of animal food. 

He picked up a green box and handed it to Ray. “These are crickets. You feed them to the...tarantula...” Michael seemed reluctant to even say the name. 

“Not a fan of spiders?” Ray asks. 

The tips of Michael’s ears reddened. “Eh...small spiders not so much, but those are  _tarantulas_...” 

Ray nodded in understanding. The guy looked kinda cute all flustered like that...

Michael started walking again, back towards the tarantula cages. Ray looked over each of them as they got closer, stopping when he noticed something missing. 

The spider that had watched Ray before was nowhere in the cage. The flap at the top of the cage hung open. 

“Um...Wasn’t there three here before?” Ray said without thinking. 

Michael froze, and stepped up to look closer at the empty cage. He paled visibly, taking a step backwards and frantically looking at the ground. 

“Oh my god, oh my god,  _there’s a goddamn spider somewhere in here oh my fucking god--”_

Ray stepped up to Michael and awkwardly held his shoulders. “Listen, dude, you need to chill. Freaking out is not going to help us find the tarantula.” 

Michael nodded, but even as Ray let him go, he still glanced around the room in fear. 

“You check around the fish tanks, I’ll look under the shelves,” Ray ordered, and Michael was immediately shaking his head. 

“You’re not making me go alone!” He argued, a little loudly, and his face flushed again. 

Ray chuckled. “Alright, you can come with me.” Michael smiled gratefully and followed behind Ray, his hands to his chest and nervously glancing at the shelves. 

Ray knelt every few feet and used the flashlight on his phone to see under the shelves. So far, he hadn’t seen anything, until-

Michael shrieked when he was looking under a shelf, and Ray’s head snapped up, but he didn’t see anything in front of them. He looked up to Michael, but suddenly the other man was gone. 

Ray stood up and walked back towards the front of the store, spotting Michael sitting crouched on the counter. He looked like he’d just gotten spooked from a ghost. 

“I saw it!” Michael claimed. “It was there!” 

“I didn’t see anything,” Ray says. “Listen, you can stay up there, it might safer for you...” He winked, and Michael glared while his cheeks flushed again. “I’ll check near the back. If it comes this way, yell.” 

Ray headed towards the fish tanks and Michael was left behind. 

Ray checked under all the fish tanks and every shelf near the back. The doors for the cats and dogs were heavy and had no space under them for a tarantula to crawl through. Anyway, it’d be a tarantula’s death wish to get stuck in a room filled with cats...

His name was suddenly called from the front, and he ran back up to Michael. Said man was prancing on his desk from foot to foot, pointing at something on the ground. 

Ray spotted the tarantula leisurely crawling across the floor, totally oblivious to the chaos it’d caused. Ray crouched down in front of it and held out a hand, which the spider hesitated before crawling on. Ray held the spider in his palm as he set it back inside the cage, double checking to make sure the flap was locked. 

He turned back to Michael, who was crawling down from the counter, now looking sheepish instead of afraid. His whole face was almost as red as his curls and he couldn’t seem to meet Ray’s eye. 

“Hey, look, sir, I’m so sorry about this,” Michael began. “If you want, if you still want the tarantula, I’ll take, like, fifty percent off--” 

“No, that’s fine,” Ray replied. “I’m not too sure I want a tarantula now, anyway.” 

“I-I got to do something, man,” Michael continued. “My boss’ll kill me if he finds out about this. I’ll give you like a coupon or something, or take something for free. Seriously, you helped me out, I need to do  _something_.” 

Ray tapped his chin, thinking for a moment. “Alright. How about you take me to dinner some time?” 

Michael blinks a few times, then offers a shy smile. “Uh-Yeah, I can do that.” Then he seems to remember something, and holds out a hand. “I’m Michael.” 

Ray takes his hand. “I’m Ray.” 

They swap numbers and Ray leaves the store with more than he intended. 


End file.
